Previously we have discussed the importance of making informed decisions regarding your IT infrastructure purchases, particularly around hardware and its longevity. As a part of that discussion, we looked at weighing up price vs. the ability to upgrade components in the future without complete replacement. When these decisions are made intelligently both operating costs and environmental impact can be reduced.
This article however looks at the polar opposite topic. When is it time to stop expending money to support aging hardware and upgrade to new equipment?
It is an unfortunately common situation in the IT industry for a client to complain about the performance of a piece of hardware and when it is suggested by their IT professional that its time to perhaps consider an upgrade the client comments “I just bought this item not that long ago”. Investigation into these comments often results in identifying hardware purchased 5, 7 or 10 years ago. Time flies in business and it’s easy to forget just how long you have had a piece of specific equipment.
Even if you have planned carefully and invested in equipment that can be upgraded over time to prolong its life and keep pace with change, there will inevitably come a time when the item reaches end-of-life.
Simple items such as desktop PC’s have a life expectancy of 4 to 5 years, perhaps slightly longer if they have upgradeable components. A laptop has a life expectancy of 2 to 4 years depending on what end of the specifications spectrum it sits within at the time of purchase.
In these examples even with upgradeable components, from a business perspective, 7 years would be expected to be a hard deadline for end of life in terms of IT strategic lifecycle planning.
IT hardware is not a trivial expense and being caught in a position where all of your devices are suddenly reaching their end of life at one time can have a large financial impact. There are a couple of ways to avoid ending up in this situation.
- Ensuring you have a good relationship with an IT provider that provides sound strategic advice both at the time of purchasing hardware and then throughout its lifecycle.
- Maintaining an IT lifecycle replacement schedule coupled with an appropriate budget component to ensure that regular cyclical replacements of devices are made.
- Engaging your IT provider to spread these cyclical replacements across several years to reduce the financial impact of replacements.
Just because a piece of hardware is expensive does not guarantee it will last longer in the IT industry. As the programs, applications and digital tools we use each day continue to grow – so too do the resourcing requirements of the hardware we use to run them. Be aware that nothing in IT stays still.
As always, its best to find an IT provider you trust, culture the relationship and get the quality advice they offer.
